Workers Pay The Price For Amazon’s New One-Hour Delivery

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Amazon’s one-hour delivery option launched in the Bay Area this week, but the workers behind the scenes of the “Prime Now” service say they’re paying a steep price to make the super-fast turnaround a reality.

Prime Now drivers are suing Amazon over pay that amounts to less than the California minimum wage. Drivers in the Los Angeles market make $11 an hour, but buy their own gas, insurance, and auto maintenance service. Drivers who cover 120 miles in a day without being reimbursed at the standard per-mile rate “make $88 in pay for eight hours with $69 in expenses, and are left with $19,” attorney Beth Ross, who is representing the Prime Now drivers, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The lawsuit alleges that the company is illegally treating the drivers as independent contractors rather than employees when the circumstances of their work fit the legal definition of an employer-employee relationship. The lawyers representing the four drivers are hoping to expand the case to a class action representing everyone who’s driven for the company’s Prime Now service in California.